Thursday, December 12, 2013

Assuming that you have screws, a simple drill and a small hand saw, you can expect to spend $10 on a two-row, 12" wide Euro Rack. Yes, it is all wood and yes, you will need to drill new holes for each new module that you purchase or build but for 10 bucks, who's complaining?

Its pretty simple, but what can I say? Im broke. :P

My plans are to use this for testing purposes even when I do find the time and money to build a real quality rack with metal parts. In any case to build your own, head down to menards any pick up these items:

There will be different taxes depending on your location so I did not include that in my total. Michigan has a small 6% sales tax, so I am lucky. I forgot to take photos while I was working, so I will draw up a diagram shortly. It is not terribly complex, so you should be able to figure it out in the meantime.

I did also buy another piece of wood to make faceplate out of. Knowing that the euro modular faceplate should be 5.25" tall, I bought a 3mm x 6" x 12" panel and will cut it to size when need be. I used this for my power control faceplate which has a switch, two LEDs and an audio input. Again, this box is probably going to be used for testing rather than audio production. The LEDs correspond to + and - 12v which I will install once I purchase a regulator. The power control plate is 10mm wide, or 2HP.

I want this to run on AC, but a regulator board that I am interested in accepts 14 - 24v DC as a source so I will end up building a wall wart into the box as well. You can see that I added a speaker from an old noise making toy. I was lucky enough to have found one with a holder rather than one that was just glued in.As soon as I power it up, I will post another update. Cheers all,Jordan